National Reports

May 1st is the perfect opportunity to redeem work and assume, with self-criticism, that beyond declamations, most people of working age are still deprived of the opportunity to access quality employment. This is the result of persevering during decades of labor regulations that discourage job creation. Given the magnitude of the failure, a change of paradigm is needed in the design of labor market institution rather than repeating old recipes.

The economic authorities desisted from publishing poverty statistics. The distortion of official statistics is of extreme lack of responsibility and diverts attention from the central issue. The controversy over the severity of poverty reduces the debate over the regressive consequences associated with the waste of public spending. In order to reduce poverty is vital to stop the manipulation of statistics and to reexamine how the state is managed.

The government presented a draft bill seeking to incentivize formal employment. In the draft lies the recognition that economic growth and tighter controls alone are not enough to reduce informality. Reforms to labor institutions with special emphasis on small enterprises can help to solve the problem. In any case, Congress should enhance its design since, as it is conceived, will repeat frustrations.

The main sources of progress and prosperity are the increases in productivity that underpin improvements in wages and massive generation of quality employment leading to families having more income generating members. Therefore, it is essential that labor and welfare institutions are very sensitive to incentives that favor responsible motherhood and labor market inclusion.

Given requests by legislators, motivated by the aggravation of the insecurity, the Cabinet’s Chief of the central government made clear that management of police and justice is a provincial responsibility. This assertion is partially correct, since a great part of the problem relies on the centralization of public funds. In any case, self-criticism among the provincial administrations is also required since they are also responsible for the lack of federalism and mediocrity in the management of their responsibilities.